on being imperfect.

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Monday, 8 May 2017

"You learn by killing things a lot."

I won't leave you wondering what field this was said in reference to - this was said about gardening by a woman who learned to garden in East Germany, in the years after Stalin died. I had been called out by trying to promote the things that our environmental organization would be doing in the future. Trying to prop us up with any form of legitimacy and justify my own presence there, I was telling someone that we would hopefully be holding some gardening workshops. What those workshops were, I had no clue. But we would be doing them.

In true East German fashion (I have a sample size of two - this lady, and my grandma), this lady called me out, not even pretending to mince words.

"You don't need workshops. You need to put something in the ground and see if it grows. If it doesn't grow, you try something else."

Thanks for casually changing how I view my career trajectory...!

You learn by failing. You learn by killing things.

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I remember the first time I failed. And yes, I was old enough to have vivid, well-formed memories about it. Because it was the first time, and I had never failed at anything before that. I mean, there were the times I slept through my alarm (I wasn't even asleep, I just didn't get up) for my paper route, and my Dad did it for me. But that's not failing, because the papers got delivered!

The first time I failed at something was my attempt at becoming a lifeguard. It was the summer before grade 9, and I was an amazing swimmer (despite placing in literally nothing at all the swim meets) but I knew I was good. I was exceptional. I was anxious. Too afraid to be anything remotely close to myself.

The details of the course don't matter much, aside from the fact that I got to fake-rescue a guy who I would later re-meet in high school, and fall desperately in love with. My thoughts on first meeting him were - "I've never seen anyone with such pale white skin." Not in a neo-Nazi way, but in a do-you-ever-go-outside?? way. Love.

I failed the course, while others seem to pass with ease. I couldn't understand this. I don't know why I couldn't remember what to do exactly in the exam. And it never occurred to me that I could try again. Too much was at stake. How could I cope with this? I had never been judged to be bad at anything in my life. The only way to deal with this is shove the exam book in the very back of my cabinet, and feel intense dread and self-loathing any time I even looked at its closed doors. Oh, and if I had to - God forbid - get something from the cabinet... my day would be ruined. Remember the time that you failed a course? What does that mean for you as a person? It probably means [a host of horrible and defeatist thoughts I don't need to go into here].

------

Well I'm not quite sure how I ended up in "urban agriculture," or more simply, gardening. You can make simple mistakes that ruin weeks of trying to start a seedling. Or you can haphazardly toss seeds out and they will grow despite your lack of care. It is difficult for me to have to necessarily learn from failure, as I clearly did not have great coping mechanisms for it. I stare anxiously at the compost pile, willing it to decompose in time for me to use it in the fall (yes, months from now). Growing things can take a long time, and for a lot of that time, there is nothing you can do about it. You do your best, but ultimately it's not up to you.

Thursday, 15 September 2016

Focusing on daily tasks, managing my energy levels in deciding what I should do or what I should sit out on, has made the year go by fast in the sense that it hardly feels like I've done anything at all, even though daily, time is drawn out. The days are long, but months fly by. I've been tired for a year. Sometimes not too tired, but other times bone-weary exhausted and headached to the point where it feels like if I close my eyes for just a moment I might collapse.

I've learned a lot about placing boundaries on myself and saying no, in order to ensure I have the energy to do something later, or to make sure I'm not hiding nausea or confusion at a social event. Or just simply for taking care of myself.

When I first got my concussion, I stubbornly tried to ride my bike to doctor's appointments about my injury, trying to hide my helmet when they informed me of how much rest I needed. I was resting, wasn't I? Even the lowball number I gave them about how much screen time I was having was three times the amount I was allowed (I said 45 minutes, they said 15 max... and I had been online much longer than 45 minutes).

Finally, when I tried desperately to make myself watch Lilo and Stitch on Netflix, and just couldn't even though I had already been lying in bed all day, I started to realize the degree of rest I needed.

Stepping out of the busyness of daily life, where doing dishes became a major accomplishment, I felt as if I had stepped out of a rushing river. Suddenly others' lives swirled around me. They were making plans, doing things, working, they were busy that night, maybe another night, they had to work, they were out of town, and on and on. This is not said in judgement - I was doing the same thing. In fact, it was so hard for me not to do the same thing, that I was actively aggravating a brain injury.

Something as simple as hitting my head on a door frame had the power to shake my sense of self worth in a way that it hadn't before. Each action I did cost me dearly, or would have consequences even a week later if I had tried to get too many errands accomplished. The only choice I had was to make small, daily survival decisions, and to just be my limited self (which was what exactly, if I'm not doing anything, making anything, or working toward something?)

I've always valued free time and rest, and somehow this was still an incredible challenge for me. Conversations became awkward - what have I been up to? Almost literally nothing. "I can't" became a phrase I said often.

As I have been healing, I still have to say that quite frequently.

Balancing rest and work is always difficult. Both are good. Limitations, sometimes, are okay. I'm not sure we realize how busy we are, or what it means to slow down - actually slow down - and just make space for relationships. To know that we are not what we produce. Rest is difficult to achieve. Not guilty rest, anxious rest, or lonely rest. I'm not sure how to do that yet, after a year. I'm getting better, and I hope I don't forget how as I (hopefully) continue healing.

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Last summer I tasted a cherry tomato for the very first time. I had eaten many, in fact I used to claim they were a favourite snack – but I had no idea I had never actually eaten them the way they were. The first time I really ate cherry tomatoes was in an urban garden, next to some train tracks and ironically, behind a grocery store. They were straight off the plants we had been forming all season – and they cast a long shadow over every other cherry tomato I had ever eaten. We hadn’t done anything special to them, or used a particular kind, or tried to grow an exceptional cherry tomato. We had just tied them and suckered them as they grew. In a burst of flavour and juiciness, it was all immediately clear how grievously disconnected we are from what we eat.

We all know this, of course. But it would be impossible to walk through a supermarket with the fullness of this knowledge. I myself often do not care what a meal tastes like as long as I am full at the end, and the cleanup is quick. Gardening goes against almost all of my sensibilities – patience, intentionality, planning ahead while also being flexible with what the soil yields. This is in part why it is so refreshing to me, as I am continually humbled, continually giving up control to the soil.

Spending time in this particular garden, one of the most consistent things that people are amazed by is what broccoli looks like prior to harvest: a large leafy plant that seems far too big to be practical for what it yields – there was so much untouched room that I often found intact spider webs among the deep green leaves. I have led such a life that I have never needed to know how to grow broccoli, or tomatoes, or anything else. A food I eat regularly, only seen for the first time as an adult before it is packaged up for my quick consumption. Of course this is not a privilege, but rather a huge disconnect from what people have being practicing for… most of human history and around the world. I’m in the minority, and I’ve been missing out.

We all eat though, one way or another, and are involved in this process, however disconnected we might be. Wendell Berry calls it “farming by proxy.” So we just have to decide what type of farming we engage in.

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

My husband works at a homeless shelter in downtown Toronto. He says that
one of the hardest things that the staff struggle with, and often burn out
from, is the slow death of hope for the people they work with. It’s easier to
be cynical than to keep hoping, to celebrate a step forward when you know that
more than likely the person will step back, or fall down again. Sometimes there
are beautiful ‘success’ stories, as indeed the organization provides resources
to help people in the face of material poverty. But it’s also a success story
to simply sit with someone, every day, for years, through their struggles,
through their failings. We’re not called to love people into being better – we
are just called to love them, as Christ loves us, despite our constant failings,
thorough brokenness, and inability to save ourselves.

I have been experiencing the slow death of hope for the beauty of creation.
More specifically, about people’s apparent lack of interest in the state of
creation, and even more, my own inability to do anything. I’m not a fan of fear
statistics about rising sea levels, extinction rates, or other doomsday
predictions. These inspire guilt, and often despair, as it seems things are too
far out of control. A much better motivator that is more rooted in scripture is
that we are called to care for creation because we love it. As we love others
despite their, and our own, perpetual brokenness so we must look at our broken
earth. It is broken at our own hands, and we are to continue loving it, and
those that perpetuate its brokenness.

As much as a natural scene (I am a fan of rivers and lakes, personally)
inspires awe and wonder they are now often accompanied with the lamenting
thought, “what have we done?” This is
how God made the world, and look at what we have done to it. Even more, we hardly
care. This is by no means intended to inspire guilt, as I am in that place too
often. Another large part of my loss of hope is the fact that I can hardly do
anything, even if I knew what to do.

Reducing my meat consumption in response to the immense toll that the meat
industry takes on the environment means I would have to find protein some other
way. One of the best (?) ways to do this is through soybean products, which as
a crop are responsible for a significant deforestation and farmer displacement.

As much as I might ride my bicycle instead of driving a car, there are
industries and systems in place that pour out pollutants that operate on a
scale that hardly seems accessible to me.

I have bought used jewelry to avoid mining and labour issues, but have bought
far more electronics that have microchips and materials that play into these
same problems – blood diamonds are
trendy, used laptops are not.

Even more, many of these alternative options are only available to me by being
middle class, having the time and resources to research and afford these
options. Buying locally and ethically, taking the time to compost, recycle, garden,
bike, researching what you buy from where, are acts of a certain privilege. Even
though environmental concerns disproportionately impact those in poverty, often
those who are bound by poverty have more immediate concerns about their health
and family, than where their waste might go.One of the hardest parts about caring for creation is to continue to love the broken church that has largely failed to respond to the groaning of the earth, and to accept grace for myself in this failure as well. We can lament this, but we don’t have to stay there. The type of hope we have is not in our power to reduce carbon emissions.
We are called to love and care for the earth – but how? We are called to love
others – but they fail, they let us down, they relapse, as do we in response to
others’ (and God’s) love for us. The love that Christ demonstrates is a
suffering love.[1]

In the face of melting ice caps, of knowing your reusable coffee mugs will also
sit in a landfill, of the immense consumption and waste of North American
culture, we are called to love the earth. Redemption and hope in our own life
is not out of the question, as much has been and will continue to be done to
foster stewardship of the earth. But we
don’t love creation in order to fix it.

[1] More on this idea: http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/02/love-unleashed-through-suffering

Saturday, 25 April 2015

For a class in Eastern Orthodox interpretations of scripture, I wrote some poems for contemplation each week of Lent, attempting an Eastern lens. They are also written in a syllabic pattern used by St. Ephrem the Syrian. 1st Sunday in Lent

You called us while we

stood under the treereaching for the fruit under the fig’s shadeYou say come and see - the prophets spoke true.

You are the one true vine!

Graft us to the branch let us bear good fruitGive us eyes to see, You, the gardener.

2nd Sunday in lent

Healer, Redeemer, you heal all who comeWe are lifted up through your forgivenessMoses raised the bronze serpent to Israel

To you, all creation looks.

You stretch out your hands in your compassionAs you are raised up creation bows down.

3rd Sunday in Lent

One from Jesse’s line,

You have submittedto be High Priest; brought low to raise up;

Your promise, a bow

over creation.

Your mercy makes your cross light.

The shoot of Jesse takes root and redeems.You have cleansed the earth, making fertile ground.

4th Sunday in Lent

The Lord’s healing hand

is above all othersThrough Him, creation hears and speaks His nameChosen by the Lord, Abraham went out.

The Lord calls out and draws in.

We praise the Lord for His deliverance!The land has borne fruit; Your promise fulfilled.

5th Sunday in Lent

The way has been made,

the ram was given;

You hung on the tree in your compassion.

The curtain pulled back, to heaven itself.

Your grace reaches to the depths.

Your deliverance is our assurance.Ransom for many, you clothe us in light.

Monday, 3 November 2014

The church
that I grew up in was the same that I was dedicated in as a baby and worshipped
at for the following twenty-three years. There are many aspects of this
experience that I am still unpacking, which can be difficult to do so in
earnest when it has been the primary informant for many of my early theological
ideas. The church is affiliated with the Associated Gospel Church (AGC)
denomination, and has close relationships with other Baptist churches around
the city. Additionally, the local university’s seminary is Baptist as well,
increasing my insulation to different theological streams. There was a strange
tension between having the idea that we were very theologically informed, and
yet having no formal catechesis process, which resulted in a kind of culture
that the way things were done, and the way things were thought about, were
simply what Christianity itself were. I only later understood
why those who tended to call themselves “non-denominational” were primarily
from Baptist, Evangelical upbringings.

Coming out
of this context, I was struck with the depth and significance given of the
Eucharist that was in other traditions. It is on this background that I will
address the practice of taking the Eucharist at this church. How this was
approached at church largely informed how I think of grace and how God relates
to us both despite, and due to, the fact that Communion seemed to be a marginal
practice. What follows is my evaluation of what the practices meant, or rather,
how they manifested themselves to me. Without delving too far into my pre-teen
psyche, I will say that my experience with preparing to take Communion was
fraught with anxiety. It was generally frowned upon for children to take part
in Communion, although some families did allow their children to do so. My
parents were particularly insistent on not taking Communion before you could
fully understand what was going on. This was part of an emphasis on internal
preparation, and ‘readiness’ to come to the table. Turning thirteen allowed me
to understand what was really going on through Christ’s death on the cross,
however I had been barred from partaking for so long, I did not know how to
proceed now that I was allowed to truly remember. It was remembrance that was
emphasized, rather than any present grace or future eschaton with the
recitation of Luke 22:19 as the closest manifestation of a liturgy. We took of
the ‘bread and wine,’ manifested as crackers and grape juice (in individual
cups), as what was important was what they represented, rather than the
elements themselves. Lacking an overt explanation of why things were done as such
implied that there was no objective importance to what was done – it was not
tied into our larger experience as the church body or historical narrative,
rather our personal reflection on what Christ did for us. Further, by focusing
on remembrance there was overwhelming emphasis on Christ’s death. We remember,
and are thankful for his sacrifice.

There was
a strange degree of solemnity for a purely symbolic observance. I am inclined
to believe that the fact that it was symbolic made it that much less
accessible. This emphasis on Christ’s sacrifice was reinforced through the most
important and most serious Communion service on Good Friday. Throughout the
year, Communion services were held once a month – although not explicitly
stated, I was impressed with the importance of the service, with it only being
once a month. It should not be taken for granted, or become routine by having
it more frequently. The focus on Christ’s sacrifice, and thus his death for our
sins reinforced that we needed to acknowledge what this meant for us,
personally. The preamble before the monthly service was generally the same, in
talking about the importance of remembering Christ’s sacrifice, and we ought to
be sure to pay credence to the event of the crucifixion, and remember the price
paid for our forgiveness. This seemed to undercut the grace given, as we were
sure to feel the appropriate amount of regret as payment for this gift of
grace. The operating paradigm was very much that of personal salvation.
Salvation primarily means that we are to be thankful to God for forgiving our
sins, because Jesus Christ sacrificed so much. We are able to come to the table
because we have asked for forgiveness. There was a shift partway through my
attendance of this church, from being served in our seats through passing trays
of crackers and the juice (although they were still referred to as the bread
and wine) to having the elements stationed at the front of the sanctuary. This
move was made to represent our active choice to reach out to God and His gift
of salvation, as we had to move up to the front, rather than passively
receiving the elements in our seats.

The
presentation of Communion as something that someone must individually prepared
for, and individually partake in showed an incomplete picture of God’s grace.
Communion was both incidental to our faith, while at the same time having
almost unspeakable importance, in putting it off until one could intellectually
grasp what they were entering into. This importance though was not explicitly
named, and I would suggest the gravity with which it was presented (in terms of
truly understanding Jesus’ sacrifice) tells only part of the story, and is
frankly a shadow of what the sacrament of the Eucharist is supposed to be. I am
largely in the reaction phase having stepped out of this context, yet I do not
want to paint this experience in a wholly negative brush. There are certainly
elements of this practice that are important, however the practices enacted
that they are trying to avoid (ritualism, transubstantiation, etc.) are not
such that they must be so obviously side-stepped as to make Communion hardly a
sacrament.

The main
elements that were distinctive of this Communion service, or spoke directly to
how this congregation conceptualized God were that it was explicitly a symbolic
gesture, it was an act of remembrance, particularly remembering Christ’s
sacrifice, it was highly individualized and internalized. By not framing a
Communion service as sacramental, that is, not a means in which God interacts
with us in the physical world, it creates a dualistic framework between
spiritual reality and corporeal reality, individual, inner salvation and the
ongoing redemption of creation through Christ. This individualized approach not
only creates the false dichotomy, but then relegates our salvation to the
‘spiritual side.’ This lends itself to become a personalized experience, and
general conception of salvation. Communion is about your response to God,
rather than God’s active work in the world – or, simply both. Our encounter of
God’s grace does not precipitate at the table itself, but rather in what occurs
prior to the table. There is no conceptual overlap through the consumption of
the elements and the reception of grace. We are closer to God because we have
once again come before him, and have acknowledged his sacrifice, not due to any
grace or effectual change that is a result of participating in the Eucharist.
There was dialogue of grace, and our reception of God’s grace through Christ’s
death and resurrection, but Communion was not a culmination of this.
Emphasizing personal preparation to come to the table through reflection,
repentance, and prayer makes the elements an accessory – the work has been
done. Although approaching the table was explained to be a response to God’s
grace, there was still room left for coming improperly (unconfessed sin, or
‘inadequate’ repentance). This is not to dismiss the gravity of abusing the
Eucharist, however this is generally warned against due to the real substance
that is present in the elements.

Having
Communion as a symbolic, internal exercise reduces the scope of what the Eucharist
is meant to capture. Focusing on Christ’s death and resurrection very much
historically dates the touch point of God’s grace. The Eucharist is indeed
grounded in real events in human history. However, when primarily manifested as
an exercise of reflection, this becomes limited to an event in the historical
past, rather than an event that has far-reaching (all-reaching, rather)
effects. Even more than ‘ripple effects,’ there is no ongoing work that is
equally grounded in human historical narrative. The message of hope that is
presented in this model of Communion is that we have hope because we have been
redeemed, but this is limited to our present and past condition. It proclaims
that Christ has died for our sins, yet the scope of that message is stunted.

A
foundational principle in rhetoric of the sacraments, why they are what they
are, and their importance to the Church is that God implemented them due to our
creaturely nature and the difficulty that comes with this. He gave us something
physical to orient ourselves, as we could not otherwise grasp spiritual
principles. This may at first seem to be a simplification of the human
condition, or denying the idea that we are both physical and spiritual; having
physical reminders is helpful, but without them we cannot begin to encounter
God? However, in a real way, we do indeed need physical reminders, as is
evidenced by what becomes of our sacraments when this reality is ignored. Even
more, we do not simply need physical reminders of spiritual things, but an incarnational
model of how God manifests himself in the world.

Regarding
the solemnity that surrounded a Communion service at this church (due to the
focus on personal sins, and Jesus’ death), there are important theological
impulses behind this, and though the practice should not be limited to this
focus, it does well to highlights the difficulty of our sinful nature and how
it is a real barrier to us before God. It does not fully align with the
symbolic nature of that particular service of Communion, yet it is an aspect of
salvation that should not be glossed over; our brokenness is complete before
God. That said, this is grossly limited in terms of the story it tells and
stops short of the nuances of how this gap is bridged. Focus on mental
preparation places an undue burden on the receivers of God’s grace. In this
context the elements are not an intermediary to God’s grace, but an expression
of having already been cleansed. In an ideal context this may not be as
problematic as it is often manifested: we remember, we are thankful for God’s
grace and come to the table. What makes this difficult to achieve in many
similar contexts is that Communion is primarily framed as
remembrance, and thus an exercise in re-living the death of Christ and the
gravity of sin that brought it about. In this light, we do indeed respond to
God’s grace, but this is secondary. The largest misappropriation of the
elements in this context is that it inadvertently paints a picture in which God
receives us at his table only once we have mentally and emotionally realized
the beauty of his grace.

Indeed, God’s
grace is sufficient, and grace itself is not transmitted through the ingestion
of the elements. Where this story stops short is that we cannot actually be
ready to come to the table in a fundamental sense. That is, we do not make
ourselves ready. The message and function of the Eucharist is God’s coming to
meet us, rather than us preparing to meet God.

Friday, 3 October 2014

It's that time of year that the air shifts ever so slightly, and there is a coolness that is now present. This past summer, when it was hotter and muggier than many of us would like, I had the privilege of working in a local garden that provided food for local food banks as well as offered the opportunity for people in the neighbourhood to take home fresh vegetables with them.

As I learned about suckering tomatoes, how to harvest red cabbage, and that although carrot tops might look like parsley they are really not and don't need to be harvested, my idea of food and what we eat broadened. I was struck with how I never stopped to think what a broccoli plant looked like. Some would call this privilege, but in reality I am missing out on something big. At the risk of overstatement, I think I've missed a huge part of human experience - I have not grown up with a concept of food as something that the land yields. It is something I can seek out, at any time, with relative convenience. We do not see food as a gift, but rather a commodity.

Being disconnected from creation is more than simply not being able to enjoy the fresh air, or eating healthier food, but to be separated from certain rhythms of life that are so important for how we see things, what we expect, and how we interact with each other - everything.

I don't know how to make do with the food that is available November through March in Southern Ontario. But - is that too simplistic? We don't live in a world where I need to can everything I need to eat over the winter, and global economies rely on exports and all that. So should I continue eating bananas all through the winter? Is it an important practice to abstain just to be in tune with the rhythm of what I am being offered - to really, truly know that I am not owed easy transportation, simple and affordable food whenever and wherever I am?